


Doldrums

by lateralus112358



Series: Root and Shaw Experience Domestic Life [2]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 04:43:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15811608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lateralus112358/pseuds/lateralus112358
Summary: Root and Shaw have a few days off from work.





	Doldrums

Shaw shifts in bed beside you, mumbling something incomprehensible under her breath. Maybe she’s fighting assassins in her dreams again. She’s very ungainly in sleep, limbs sprawled all over, mouth agape. You think it’s adorable, but she gets angry if you ever say so.

So obviously you say it all the time.

It’s almost 4 AM now, and Shaw’s apartment (Shaw’s and yours, you correct yourself happily) is quiet, the only sounds are from the air conditioner and the whirring of your laptop. It’s been almost a week since you slept in your (!) bed; She’d had you stopping a terrorist cell in Dubai, and you just got back to New York tonight. Or last night, you guess. Whatever.

Shaw went to sleep rather quickly, but your brain was still on Dubai time, and you felt your usual post-mission insomnia kicking in. You’ve had a bit of code that’s been nagging you, so it seemed like a good time to take another crack at it. That was an hour ago. You’d meant to just make a few tweaks, but now you find yourself deep in the morass of code, every small fix requiring half a dozen larger fixes, and before you know it, you’re overhauling the entire thing. You’re properly tired now, but if you stop, you’ll lose momentum, and you’ll have to string all these disparate ideas you’re running concurrently back together to make any headway, so you barrel on. And anyway, coding is cathartic, if occasionally detrimental to your sleep cycle.

Shaw emits another vague mumble. It sounds like a threat, but almost everything she says sounds like a threat. It’s just how she talks.

She always claims she sleeps better when you’re gone, but you know she misses you. Otherwise why would she stay up waiting until two in the morning when you finally got back? She never admits she misses you, but she never admits a lot of things. You know how she feels. Like the time you had to go undercover as a couple for a number. She hadn’t been thrilled about the idea of acting as your fake spouse, but she’d also refused point-blank to allow anyone else to do so, which is how you ended up with a Persian sociopath as your wife, even if the marriage never _technically_ happened. You still have the fake wedding photo you’d Photoshopped together; it sits on your bedside table, despite Shaw’s protestations. She never moves it, though.

“Just fucking go to sleep.” Shaw groans a few minutes later.

You hadn’t realized she had woken up. “Sorry, sweetie.” You close the laptop. You’ll just have to pick up all your scattered thoughts tomorrow and try to string them into coherent code. You lay the laptop on your endtable, shoving a few other odds and ends out of the way in the process; they hit the ground with resounding clatters. Shaw hisses. She always tells you not to keep the table so cluttered. But it’s important for you to keep all those things in easy reach, in case you need them. True, you’ve never needed your taser in the middle of the night before, but someday you might, and on that day you will be prepared, while Shaw will be sad and taser-less. Then she’ll have to beg you for yours.

And of course you’ll give it to her since you’re completely incapable of resisting her.

But you can’t let her know that. You need to be a stalwart picture of willpower, a wall impenetrable to the sexy wiles of well-muscled, dark-haired women everywhere. A shining example of—

“And get over here, my side of the bed’s cold.”

You move over.

***

You wake up before Root, which is unsurprising; if she’s not on a mission for the Machine, she never drags herself out of bed until nearly noon. You carefully remove her arms from around your thigh, and her face from your midriff. You probably could be a little more gentle about it, but she doesn’t wake up, so it’s all good.

You grab your phone, noting that the background hasn’t changed yet. Root always changes it to a picture of her; a new one each time, her face grinning at you with some exotic locale as the backdrop. Determined not to be outdone, you always change it back to a picture of Bear. Recently you’d set it to a picture of Root with Bear, from one of the times she actually stayed at your apartment for more than a few hours before disappearing across the world. She apparently sees this as an acceptable compromise, and hasn’t attempted to change it yet.

Finch calls while you’re making breakfast. You never get a break. 

“Good morning, Miss Shaw,” he says. “How do you feel about armed robbery?

“Depends.” You reply, taking a bite of the eggs you made. They’re good. “Am I doin’ it or stoppin’ it?”

“Stopping it, I would think.”

“You never let me have any fun Finch.” You open a cabinet door and see that you’re nearly out of pills for Root’s migraines. You are convinced that they’re brought on by a lack of a regular sleep pattern as well as a supercomputer having a direct line into her fucking brain, which you’ve made known on several occasions and just received her I’m-humoring-you-but-you’re-being-very-silly-right-now-Sameen look. She also seems incapable of ever purchasing any medicine for herself, opting instead to just lay around the apartment looking pitiful until the migraine passes. “When’s it going down?”

“We’re not sure at the moment. I can let John know to call you whenever he gets something.”

“Sounds good.” You can grab Root’s pills before you meet up with Reese and Finch. You need drop by the store anyway.

You head back into your bedroom, grabbing Root’s purse from where she’d discarded it on the floor last night, and dig through it until you find her Nano. You snooze, you get your gun stolen.

***

It’s less fun to lay around in bed when Sameen’s not here to be annoyed by it, you decide as you get up.

You wander into the kitchen, noting how lifeless the apartment seems. Shaw’s idea of a home is apparently walls and furniture and nothing else, though you try to liven things up whenever you get home. Where’d she put your lava lamp? You were finally starting to get the place to feel a bit more lively. At least she’d kept all the fun dishware you’d bought her; before all her cups and plates were just gray. It was a very sad spectacle. 

You do note a splash of color in a vase on the counter. 

Sometimes, when Shaw decides that she’s not being an attentive enough girlfriend, she buys you flowers. She also steadfastly refuses to admit that she does so, even the one time you followed her and watched her in the act.

You’ve told her that other gifts, like guns, or knives, or even some cheap cellphones to replace the ones you inevitably destroy would be fine, too, but she adamantly adheres from her pattern. Finding out that your sociopathic girlfriend, who disavows any sort of relationship as bullshit, is an old-school romantic is one of the most delicious things you’ve ever discovered.

Equally delicious is the plate of pancakes and bowl of scrambled eggs Shaw left you in the microwave. You hold down the power button on your phone, and let it start up as you spread butter on a pancake, and take a bite. In retrospect, it really shouldn’t be a surprise that someone as enraptured with food as Shaw would turn out to be a good cook. She makes you breakfast most mornings, although she usually claims that she just ‘made too much.’ She always ‘makes too much’ of your favorite foods.

Your phone buzzes, all the messages from last night pouring in at once. You look at the ones from Shaw first.

**SENT FROM SHAW AT 6:13**

**Working a number. See you tonight.**

**SENT FROM SHAW AT 6:14**

**Don’t stare at your computer all day**

That’s very sweet of her. Your code still needs revisions, though. You wolf down the rest of your breakfast, boot up your laptop, hunker down on the couch and get to work. You pick up your reading glasses off the table beside you and slide them on. The strain from staring at the screen for hours on end does give you headaches sometimes, but the glasses help. It’s too bad Shaw isn’t here. Apparently ‘sexy librarian’ is one of her turn-ons, since usually not long after you put the glasses on, she fixes you with one of those intense, dark-eyed stares that makes your knees weak, and then neither of you get any work done for a while.

You guess it’s better she’s not here. You’d never get finished with this code.

***

“Sorry Shaw,” Fusco says with a shrug. “Me and the big guy already handled it.”

You frown. “You couldn’t wait for me?”

“You know, I asked that too,” Fusco replies. “For some reason the guy trying to blow our heads off wouldn’t listen. Weird, right?”

Your baleful stare fails to burn him to a sarcastic crisp. “So what else have we got today?”

“I’m taking my kid to see a game,” Fusco says. “I figured you and Crazy would be out throwing knives at each other or whatever it is you do.”

“So, nothing.”

“Yeah. Enjoy the day off. Maybe try to relax or something.”

Generally your daily missions _are_ what relaxes you. Oh well. You make your way to the train station, contemplating the best use of the stretch of empty space you’ve just acquired. You suppose you could call Gen; you try to maintain some sort of presence in her life, even if only to frighten off any of her classmates that give her trouble. But she usually calls you when she’s got time, no sense in bothering her if she’s busy.

You stop at a hole-in-the-wall Italian place to pick up some food. When Root finds out you’ve got the day off, she’s sure to come up with some kind of ill-conceived romantic escapade that will force you out among a bunch of people you can’t stand, which is any given group of people, particularly in New York. If you bring some food home you can spin it as a day in or something and you can eat and watch TV in relative peace.

Besides, there are worse ways to spend your time than watching TV with her for a while. If you’re forced to have company it might as well be hers.

***

Shaw sits on the couch, focused on the football players on the TV screen. You lay on your stomach, continuing work on your code, your laptop resting on Shaw’s legs. Occasionally you glance up to make a comment about the game. Even though at this point you’ve learned all the rules fairly well, you still make logically flawed observations because it pisses Shaw off. She knows what you’re doing but she still falls for it.

Probably because it’s fun for her too. Being annoyed is her way of being affectionate.

“So what do you normally do when you have a day off?” You ask. Apart from wait anxiously for every message you send her, which you already know she does, which is why you make sure to send so many of them. She’d get worried about you otherwise.

“Enjoy the silence.”

“I thought you liked heavier stuff.” You close your laptop and place it on the floor, then roll onto your back and lay your head in its place on Shaw’s legs.

“What?” She looks away from the screen to frown down at you.

“I just thought Depeche Mode seemed a bit too mellow for you.”

Shaw returns her attention to the TV. “I never know what you’re saying.”

“You don’t know what the words mean, but you always know what I’m saying.”

Her expression is vaguely amused as she rolls her eyes. You know what she’s saying; that eyeroll means ‘I love you too.’ It also means ‘Stop bothering me and let me watch the game,’ but obviously you’re not going to do that. Instead you sit up, throw an arm around her shoulders and press your lips to her neck. It’s a game you play where you see how long it takes for her to push you down and tear your clothes off. 

She keeps her eyes forward determinedly. The funny thing is, she seems to think you always have an advantage over her, with how much you affect her, but that’s really not true at all. She can make you do absolutely anything she wants, you just don’t try to resist her. Why would you?

You move your lips to a different spot. Shaw doesn’t end up seeing the rest of the game.

***

You shove Root’s snoring form off of you, and roll out of bed, stretching. After you deem yourself sufficiently limbered, you drop into your morning workout. While you’re woman enough to admit that a day spent mostly on having sex with Root is something you enjoy, it’ll be good to get back to work. You’d go crazy sitting around for too long.

You gather up the clothes you’d discarded last night to toss them in the hamper. You see Root’s clothes as well, hesitate, then pick them up and toss them on top of her slumbering body. She needs to learn to clean up after herself. Though most likely she’ll disappear off to Germany or somewhere else later today and leave her mess behind her, still uncleaned. Maybe you’ll box up all her junk and mail it off to whatever country she winds up in; a return gesture for all the messages she sends you when she’s gone.

You continue on this train of thought for a while, before realizing you’ve been standing in the shower for nearly ten minutes doing nothing. Damn Root. She has a way of getting into your head. And other places.

You get dressed, eat, and make your way down to the train station. There’s a medical conference downtown you’ve been interested in seeing, though you probably won’t even get halfway through before Finch calls you with some other job. 

The train is weirdly subdued. No crazy people trying to tell you about conspiracy theories, no weirdos jerking off in a corner. Even the smell isn’t that bad. The whole thing is vaguely unsettling. You pull out your phone and note a bunch of messages from Gen, though when you look you see it’s just one long string of GIFs. You don’t really know what the appropriate response is to that kind of thing, so you just send back “ **:/** “.

Generally Gen contacts you pretty shortly after Root goes off on her missions, and you know Root’s putting her up to it. Root thinks you’re too out of touch with your nonexistent feelings to call the kid yourself, so she does it for you. Really, you just don’t feel the need to bother Gen if she’s busy, which she usually is; kid’s got some sort of spy network running through her school that occupies most of her time. Root doesn’t really get that, she thinks you’ll get lonely on your own, probably because she gets lonely and she’s trying to protect you from that.

Anyway, you let her set up your outings with Gen because it makes her feel better, and for some reason that’s important to you.

***

You dig through Shaw’s clothes drawers until you find some stuff you like and them slip them on. You leave your clothes from last night on the bed where you’d found them this morning; She’ll probably give you a new mission today, so you want to leave a reminder of you there for Sameen. You grab your purse, noting that all of your emergency supplies are present. Usually you have time to pack, but you never know when duty will call you, so a conscientious agent always keeps her purse well-stocked. You do need to get another gun, though, since Shaw took your Nano.

Not that it’ll be difficult to find a gun in this apartment.

You have a particular one in mind, though, one you know Shaw won’t have taken. You open the fridge, grab the large jar of mayonnaise shoved in the very back, and set it on the counter. You open the jar, then reach into your (excellently stocked) purse and retrieve a plastic glove, slide it on, and reach into the jar. Shaw hates the stuff, so you knew this was a safe spot. You close your hand on the plastic bag within the jar, and draw it out, though it is disturbingly light. Upon removing the mayo-covered bag from its container, you discover that it’s light because the weapon inside has been removed, and replaced by a piece of paper bearing a scrawled ‘I.O.U.’

Sameen is really too smart for her own good. And also for yours. It makes sense that she’d want to keep it, sentimentally speaking. Pretty sweet of her. 

You do need a gun, though. Maybe a trade would work. 

You need to go shopping. Or, rather, Charli Gordon needs to go shopping. Which means Root needs to go change again; Charli would never wear this.

***

You’re getting a bit antsy. You’d actually managed to sit through the entire conference. No criminals needing your particular brand of violence, no damsels or mansels (as Root dubbed the male equivalent) requiring rescue. You’d even managed to ask a few questions at the end, which was a bit of a risk since you’re not really supposed to be here, but damn it you’ve never made it all the way to Q&A before.

It was a mistake for a different reason, though, since it apparently drew enough attention that a bunch of the assholes here actually want to _talk_ to you. What the hell is up with that? Why don’t they just fuck off like reasonable people would? You duck through the crowd, pulling out your phone to check it again. It’s weird that you still haven’t gotten a call. Maybe something’s happened to Finch, or Reese, and they can’t contact you?

You need to go check it out. These hordes of presumptuous doctors will just have to find someone else to bother. Suddenly you’re recalling why you never managed the job in the first place; all the fucking people.

Of course, you could just call Finch and see if he picks up. The chances that he wouldn’t find a way to contact you if something had gone wrong are incredibly low, but you need something to do. All this waiting around is going to give you ulcers. Even an imagined mission is better than nothing.

***

You smile, handing a plate of food across the counter. you’d retrieved your uniform from a locker in a nearby gym, where your current alias, Charli Gordon, is a member. This particular double life is one you’ve has continued to maintain for quite a while, due to various benefits it affords you, not least of which is the amount of fun you have doing so.

Today Charli is volunteering at a soup kitchen, as she often does when she’s in town. Charli is a very socially conscious member of society. After a few hours of serving, you go to the back room to wash the dishes, smiling at every volunteer you pass along the way. They all love Charli; she is a very sweet person.

What they don’t know is that your double life _also_ has a double life.

Closing the back room’s door behind you and disregarding the dishes, you bend down to the floor, forcing your fingers underneath a particular tile, which you then pull away. From the revealed hole underneath, you withdraw a small suitcase, stocked with a change of clothes, and a cell phone. You activate the cell phone, make one call, then stomp on it, and sweep up the refuse into a nearby trash can. You then shuck the uniform, and pull on the new clothes; all black, not that different from 95% of Sameen’s closet, actually. Also a pair of lovely high heeled boots; just because you’re a professional doesn’t mean you can’t be fashionable. That done, you place your uniform into the suitcase and the suitcase into the floor and the tile on top of the suitcase.

Then you exit through the rear entrance and stroll out from the alley onto the sidewalk. You wonder what Sameen’s doing right now. Something exciting, probably. She’s not very good at sitting still.

Oh damn it, you forgot about your code again. Now it’s going to be even harder to pull it all together, even if you are a very meticulous commenter. Oh well. Agent 13, as your alias’s secret identity is known, has other things to attend to.

***

“Nothing?”

Finch looks over at you from his desk, on which is scattered the guts of a computer. “It appears that way, Ms. Shaw.”

You uncross your arms, frustrated, swing them uselessly for a moment, then recross them again. “You don’t think that’s strange? Maybe the Machine’s messed up.”

“The Machine is functioning perfectly well,” Finch says, in the tone of mildly annoyed parent. “Mr. Reese has been through three times today to make the same inquiry.”

“What about outside New York?” You ask. “There’s gotta some terrorist or something that needs taking down.”

“I believe Ms. Groves would be informed if that were the case,” Finch replies. “Perhaps we simply aren’t needed at the moment.” You find yourself discontented by this answer, and apparently your reaction manifests itself on your face, because Finch adds, “I’m sure it’s temporary, our city’s criminals should be back to work in no time.”

“They better,” you growl, turning to walk away.

***

You sit, legs spread apart, slumped in a way that suggests supreme lack of concern. Your fingers drum on the side of the chair. The room you’re in looks like any bland office in any building in the city, if you didn’t know it was built to withstand almost any kind of attack. Agent 13’s handler, a small, nervous looking woman with glasses and hair in a tight bun, looks across her desk at you warily, almost disbelievingly.

“We thought you were killed in Japan,” she says, hesitantly.

“I’d’ve thought y’all knew me better than that,” you drawl. Agent 13 is a Texan, which makes her at least twice as fun to be whenever you have the chance. Even Sameen admitted your accent was ‘weirdly sexy.’ “I ’sume y’all fetched my stuff?”

“Yes, we recovered most of your effects from the site in Kyoto,” her handler replies. “However, we have not received any further directives for you.” The CIA - or at least those of them aware of Agent 13 - are under the impression that they are part of a top-secret antiterrorism program. They receive missions in the form of numbers, relayed to them from an anonymized source, that give them information about active terrorist threats. In reality their source is just you, with a little bit of help. They then ‘assign’ Agent 13 ‘directives’ based on this information, and when you or Sameen and the others neutralize the threat, the CIA attributes it to Agent 13’s impeccable skills. This gives the work you all do a bit of clout with the government and keeps you all nice and safe under the radar. 

And it’s fun.

“Ain’t here on account of any directive,” you tell Agent 13’s handler. “Just tryin’ to return something I borrowed.”

The handler produces a generic looking suitcase and pushes it across the desk to you. You unzip it, note a particular gun, among sundry other personal artifacts, then reseal it. You stand, and offer a nod to your handler as you walk out. “’Till next time.”

***

You finish reassembling Root’s gun, and then immediately start taking it apart again. She’s a genius, but sometimes she’s not that smart. She never buys any groceries, and somehow she thought you wouldn’t notice a giant container of mayonnaise? You snort.

Still no numbers. You’ve been sitting around the apartment for hours, feeling too lethargic to do much of anything.

After a while, Root reappears, and flops down in a chair opposite you. “So how’s your day been, sweetie?”

“Aggravating.”

“I’m sorry,” Root gets up and drops down beside you, leaning her head on your shoulder. “You want to go out tonight?”

“No.” You push her away.

***

You can’t make any headway on this code. Frustrated, you put the laptop down and rub your aching eyes. You’d expected Her to call you today, give you another job, but She hadn’t. All that preparation, wasted.

Well, not entirely wasted, since you did enjoy yourself. But still.

And now Sameen is shutting you out, acting all morose. Now you’re starting to feel lousy, too. She went to sleep early, and hadn't even tried to make out with you once. You’re kind of hurt, and also not sure what to do. You’ve never actually been in a relationship with someone that you weren’t trying to steal from or kidnap, so this whole girlfriend thing is kind of new territory for you.

Maybe you should kidnap Sameen? She’d probably think that was pretty fun.

But no, then she’d be mad when she found out it was just you making it up.

You sag in your chair. Relationships are easier when there’s more crime going on. Kind of inconsiderate of all your would-be perpetrators to mess with your and Sameen’s happiness like this.

***

You eat a mostly de-frozen waffle. You hadn’t felt like cooking.

Still no numbers.

Root sprawls on the couch, her expression distant. You’d halfheartedly asked if she wanted to fuck, and she said she wasn’t in the mood. You didn’t even know that was possible.

You’re really not in the mood either, but anything to break up this monotony.

Your phone stays silent.

***

You type one line of code, then delete it.

***

You reassemble the gun.

***

You stare forlornly at Shaw.

***

Root stares forlornly at you.

***

Shaw’s phone rings and she picks it up immediately.

“Thank _god_.”

***

You swing yourself up onto the shoulders of one bad guy, wrapping your legs around his neck and dragging him to the ground as you reach out and clobber another with the butt of your gun. Both then acquire damage to their kneecaps a professional opinion to get to an ER as soon as possible. Root, a few feet away, is an incomprehensible swirl of bullets and limbs that somehow manage to find their targets. Reese drops several more behind you.

All in all the fight takes less than five minutes.

“Well,” Root says, flashing you a grin. “I think that—“

You grab her, press her against the wall and smash your lips onto hers.

“Why _now_?” John asks.

***

“I got your gun back, by the way,” you say offhandedly to Shaw when she comes out of the bathroom. “So you don’t have to keep stealing mine.”

Shaw shrugs as she gets into bed and pulls up the covers. “I like taking yours.” She moves over to your side, close enough that your legs touch. “Put your clothes in the hamper before you leave tomorrow,” she says, eyes closed.

You’re not going to sleep just yet, though. You’ve had a few breakthroughs on your code.

All is well.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had bits of this story laying around almost since I posted the first one. Pretty nice to actually finish it. Hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
